Thomas Paine was many things: author, radical, inventor, intellectual, and revolutionary; but he was also considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense, was considered so influential to the American revolutionary cause that it was reportedly said at the time that “without...
On Thursday, August 11, 2011, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once again made headlines, but it wasn’t for literary accomplishment or news of a long-lost Sherlock Holmes crime buster. He, instead, found himself on newswires around the world for having one of his books banned. This isn’t the first time...
The Giving Tree is one of the most affectionate, oft-quoted, and beloved children’s stories of all time; A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends are many a child’s first introduction to poetry. These books have endured because Silverstein paints a whimsical world of fantasy that...
When the shadow of night falls; When the first dew of morning glistens; When the Sun’s rays light up a room; When twilight draws near- I think of you. In the way you brush aside your hair; In the way you hold...
What Mark Twain was to the 19th century, Kurt Vonnegut was to the 20th. Both are among the finest examples of the American Satirists. He was, and is, a beloved fixture of American literature. When Vonnegut died in 2007, members of the Alplaus Volunteer Fire Department in New York...
As a writer you hope that your words aren’t just read, the information assimilated, and then the message simply forgotten or discarded. You hope that at the very least in some small way it evokes some sort of emotional response- be it a smile, a laugh, or even anger....
The 1865 work by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym) about a girl’s trip into a fantasy world has been of tremendous influence on literature and music, and a mainstay of animated and feature adaptations for generations. It is widely considered to be one of the best...